Rationalisation: 42 schools to disappear

With the state government’s latest concept of rationalisation to send the children of a primary school to the nearby school having a strength of 10, 30 students in case of upper primary school and high school with less than 50, as many as 42 schools will disappear in the district as the authorities have completed the rationalisation process.

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Visakhapatnam: With the state government’s latest concept of rationalisation to send the children of a primary school to the nearby school having a strength of 10, 30 students in case of upper primary school and high school with less than 50, as many as 42 schools will disappear in the district as the authorities have completed the rationalisation process.

Highlights:

45 upper primary schools downsized to primary schools

36 upper primary schools having less than 30 students are merged with nearby upper primary schools

The government has issued the guidelines recently to the Department of Education asking the authorities to complete the rationalisation process before the reopening of the schools despite opposition by various trade unions.

As per the completed process, 36 upper primary schools having less than 30 students in the district were merged with the nearby upper primary schools and another 45 upper primary schools having less strength of students were downsized to primary schools. Furthermore, the authorities have completely removed five primary schools having no minimum strength and Kottapenta High School in Devarapalli mandal was also closed as it has the strength of less than 50.

With regard to the continuation of English and Telugu media in high schools, it should fulfil that each medium must have 50 students and so the authorities have closed English medium in some high schools where the total number of students in both media is not even 100. However, district educational officer G Nagamani claimed that steps are being taken to continue Telugu medium and the teachers belong to those closed schools were shifted to the nearby schools.

Meanwhile, the AP Right to Education Forum demanding that the government scrap the GO Ms No. 14 issued on January 2 this year prompting to replace Telugu medium with English medium in all municipal schools, conducted a public opinion on May 21 by forum convener Narava Prakasa Rao. Stating that they are not against to introduction of English medium, he demanded continuation of Telugu medium in all the government and municipal schools.